The Arizona sentinel., 1887-01-15
EPERNAY'S CAVERNS.
Scenes in the Vast Underground Cellar.
 Where Champagne Is Made.

Scenes in the Vast Underground Cellars
 Where Champagne Is Made.
 Here is a vast subterranean city of champagne. For miles and miles there are streets hewn out of the solid chalk. flanked with piles of bottles with cham pagne of all blends and qualities. There are rows of casks full of the sparkling, foaming nectar. Bottles are stacked about in every attitude-some lying horizontally, others stuck in racks, di- agonally or vertically. There is no light in this labyrinth of streets, crossings and turnings except what the splutter- ing candles afford. All is dark, dank and damp, with the temperature away down about zero. Workmen are about in hundreds, clattering with bottles, packing cases, and making champagne ready for the market. We are in the caves of Mercier & Co.,, the largest champagne manufacturers in Epernay, whose underground cellars cover over forty-five acres, and contain 5,000,000 bottles of wine. There is a whole street in Epernay lined with fine chauteaux, the proprietors of which possess similar establishments. The whole town is honeycombed with these underground gallieres and cellars for the manufacture and storage of cham pagne. M. Mercier begins to explain the different processes through which the sparkling wine has to pass be- tween the grape and the bottle. The grapes, having been gathered by the 'gamins'' of Paris and wayside wan derers, they have first to be pressed. The press is mighty machine. It is first let down gently on the grapes stacked on the floor beneath it. The first touch produces the cream of the juice, which makes the very finest ''cuvees." The juice runs off into casks. Six different squeezes are given, each more powerful than the preceding, and each producing an in- ferior quality of juice. The last quality is very coarse, and considered to be fit only for the working people to drink. In making claret the skins are distilled with the juice to color the wine, but are kept back in making champagne and ight-colored wines, Out of the crushed grapes a very bad quality of brandy is distilled. When the wine has attained its proper flavor and bouquet another rdelicateope alton has to be gone through. It has to be made effervescent. The quantity of carbonic gas put in must be regulated to nicety. Two little will make the wine flat and too much burst the bottles. Any deficiency in saccharine matter is made up at this point. Then comes the bottling. As yet there has been no att tempt to clear the wine of its impurities and foreign matter, but after remaining several years in bottle it clears itself. At first the bottles are laid down hori- zOntally, turned around and shaken every day, and gradually raised up until they stand on end, neck downward, by which time all the sediment in the wine is gathered in a solid lump on the cork. Then takes place the ''disgorgement," for which and the remaining operation several machines are employed. "Disgorge- ment'' means that the cork, sediment and all is blown out. To fill up the bottle again-for certain quantity of wine goes with the cork-liqueur, con sisting of the purest sugar-candy, best champagne and old brandy is put in. "On the quantity of liqueur," explains M. Mercier, depends the blend and distinctive character of the wine. We make it sweet, dry or very dry, to suit our customers, by regulating the proportions of the liqueur. In England, for instance, dry wines are most drunk, while Frenchmen must have their wines sweet" After this process the bottles are corked by machinery, wired and labelled, and after lying several months, for the amalgamation of the wine and the liqueur, the wine is fit for drinking. These are the principal operations through which champagne passes.-- Cor. PdU MdU Gazette.